Omnicell data breach affects thousands more than originally believed

No company wants to be liable for its customers or employees having personal information exposed. With technology evolving at an increasingly fast pace, many businesses are working to keep their systems as up-to-date as possible. Organizations across all industries would be wise to partner with commercial insurance specialists to guarantee that their technology insurance accounts for the possibility of a data breach.

An incident involving hospital management vendor Omnicell is a recent example of security issues within a business. On November 14, 2012, an Omnicell employee's locked car was broken into and an unsecured device containing patient information was stolen, according to a statement released by the company.

The report explained that the device held medication, demographic and health information of patients. Medical records, financial information, Social Security numbers and insurance data were not on the device.

"While Omnicell has no reason to believe that the device was taken for the information it contained, or that the information has been accessed or used improperly, out of an abundance of caution, Omnicell began sending letters to affected patients on December 31, 2012," the statement said. "Omnicell is also providing a dedicated call center to answer questions for those affected."

Originally, 4,000 patients from the University of Michigan Medical System were reported as being possibly impacted. However, Health IT Security said that now, 56,000 patients from Norfolk, Virginia-based Sentara Healthcare have been notified of the breach, as well as 8,500 patients in the South Jersey Healthcare system.

Even if a computer or other item holding sensitive data is returned to a company, the entire time that it was missing is considered a breach in security. It's important for business owners to work with a firm that specializes in commercial property insurance. That way, a comprehensive policy that is unique to the organization can be found.